Course : ENGIN TULAY Car Designer & Architect & Lecturer

COURSE & LECTURES

CAR DESIGN AS MASS CULTURE AND ART

SYLLABUS

The Car Design as Mass Culture and Art course aims to provide fundamental knowledge of car design, focusing on structural and symbolic typologies as well as aesthetic values influenced by societal changes throughout history. The course is positioned at the intersection of architecture and the urban platform, with the goal of redefining the context of cars and exploring what will shape the future of urban mobility, particularly in terms of connectivity, efficiency, environmental concerns, and social consciousness as key priorities. The course examines the emergence of critical future responsibilities, addressing issues related to contemporary thresholds formed by spatial perception and shaped by various human sensations. Car Design as Mass Culture and Art is a survey course, combining theoretical lectures and individual applied projects that students are required to create. Students are expected to attend classes regularly, take notes, and engage in discussions and project work. Final evaluation is based on attendance (20%), midterm grades (40%), and final exams, as well as applied project considerations (40%).

COURSE SCHEDULE - 4 hours per week

WEEK & SUBJECT

1 Towards the Modern Car: A Further Place and Time for Man
2 Symbolic and Aesthetic Values of Cars
3 Cars: Imagery, Sensory Perception, and Cognition
4 Car and Morphological Perception
5 Opposing Points of View in a Car
6 Modern Cities, Speed Dilemmas, and Cars as a Phenomenon
7 Driving the City by Car: Urban Space and Progressive Mobility

8 Midterm

9 Semantic Content Between American Cities, Roads, and Cars
10 Architecture, Cars, and Mechanical Consciousness
11 Car as the Pro-thesis of Space: The New Determinant of Urban Morphology
12 An Unavoidable and Irrepressible Gratification: The Speed
13 A Place with Continuously Changing Boundaries: A Car and Spatial Intangibility
14 Panel Discussions and Results

PREFACE

CAR AS AN INTERFACE

The course aims to provide both an intellectual and practical experience of the theoretical and abstract evolution of cars, exploring this subject within a multidisciplinary approach and a collective consciousness. In addition to these studies, sketching and scaled model practices, which incorporate annotations from intellectual processes and collage diagram characteristics, will be evaluated as part of the research. These derivative studies, presented as an anthology and sampling, will also focus on a thoughtful assessment of various dimensions of space, including architecture, human-body interface, urban space, man-machine interactions, and the affiliation context from a mobility perspective.

In selecting the theme, the course has two main objectives: to cultivate the foundational practices and principles of car design, and to convey the diversity of research while presenting comprehensive global studies in this regard. Although cars are designed according to natural, cultural, and traditional parameters, they are considered on a global scale. In this sense, the workshop offers various norms related to car and transportation design. At this point, the potential loss of distinctive characteristics, due to the constraints of manufacturing and the influence of a dominant global culture aligned with the new economic order, will also be addressed. During the studies, it will be important to emphasize the significance of traditional and national design elements. Therefore, the course will cognitively examine the concept of cultural codes within various contexts associated with cars, in a retrospective manner.

Cars, as objects and interfaces, have the unique ability to almost envelop the human body like apparel and hold significant value throughout history. They are positioned as part of a social paradigm that helps develop practical, conscious memory. While cultural codes create social categorization, they also include an assessment of specific qualities within each category. Cars, with their distinctive symbolic and aesthetic values, embody this abstract concept as well as their physical appearance. In this sense, through the course, cars will be examined as significant objects that shape social consciousness and memory in relation to their design aspects, acting as key players in modern life. Thus, cars will also be considered a social program that influences many cross-cultural attitudes.

The course aims to study the relationship between cars, architecture, and city platforms from various perspectives. Therefore, the intersections between man and machine, along with their spatial dimensions, will be key criteria in the process. The city, resembling a living organism with its multiple definitions, will play a significant role in analyzing the paths of cars through their existence in human life, while exploring mobility concepts with both physical and psychological aspects. In addition, the course will examine how new technologies could evolve new platforms and structures for the development of the car industry. These considerations will allow us to envision prospective city scenarios and project the phenomenon that will grow within this framework.

The course will review the dynamics of the relationship between car and road. Furthermore, the context of roads within the integral continuation of house corridors will lead us to re-examine the important role of cars in relation to architecture. Architecture, as a projection of human life, plays a crucial role alongside cars in modern life, contributing to another layer of substantial association, with the common denominator being humans. The question of where architecture actually stands within the city will also lead us to cars as one of the most fundamental aspects of architecture, particularly in such complex spatial contexts. The course will expand the theoretical framework of architecture in relation to the mobility norms that humans build within cities and urban areas. Therefore, it aims to propose a new perspective on the definitions of the modern architectural paradigm. In this course, the mutual transformation between city and human, the way that the city shapes life, the sensation of speed as a result of this, and the freedom offered by cars will form the core themes of the workshop.

In recent years, the development of cars has been the subject of systematic analyses by aesthetic and art professionals. Our era is defined by forms, shapes, and images; in this sense, we are aware of the need to find meaning in every object to define the differences, outlines, and drafts in this vast panorama. The modern era drives us to make sense of everything that exists while decoding every object around us within a landscape of extremes and super/ultra abundances. Thus, this need to make sense of everything can congest the panorama of connotations. In this context, cars exhibit some of the most dramatic symbolic and aesthetic characters. Symbolic characters represent the ability of an object to create value within specific cultural connotations, while aesthetic characters reflect the perceivable quality that arises from its main activity and sensitivity. Therefore, throughout the course, identifying the symbolic and aesthetic characters of car design will highlight the underlying structure. In this context, the aim will be to develop an artistic insight for applied projects, addressing both perspectives.

The connection between man and machine forms spatial dimensions, and this evolution generates numerous levels of perception and unique vital structures, which are consequently shaped by cars through movement, speed, and autonomy. Therefore, the diversity of human perception leads to the assignment of various meanings to cars. While cars become part of spatial integrity through their abstract and physical dimensions, they are also integrated into the psychological dimensions of space and time, which are generated by humans through various sensations related to existence. Thus, this course will analyze how architecture and cars create mutual dimensions, formed through spatial integrity, as simple symbols, imagery, and sensations.

The course aims to emphasize the urgency of a sustainable mobility paradigm, which is one of the most significant issues of our era. Examining this through possible proposals and various solutions will provide an opportunity to assess both micro and macro mobility paradigms, as well as explore the future city phenomenon in light of the increasing significance of cars within this framework. Topics such as the analysis of future mobility norms, the current evidence of future needs, and the sophisticated integration of modern technologies, alongside the growing interaction of cars with urban infrastructure and systems, will be explored during the course.

OBJECTIVES

• Introduction to the structures of car design through a multidisciplinary approach, including architecture, urban design, material engineering, ergonomics, product design, and performance, with a focus on environmental sustainability and social awareness, while also considering technological and production constraints.

• Integrating the design process into new experiential concepts, redefining the architectural structures of cars, and advancing new criteria for efficiency and future responsibilities.

• Offering studio projects alongside theoretical and conceptual training, organized into design concepts and their refinement through digital modeling.

• Exploring micro and macro mobility systems that respond to new city typologies by questioning today’s transportation and vehicle design paradigms, and interpreting environmental issues, global economic trends, and evolving social structures.

• Observing progressive transportation concepts that challenge future mobility scenarios, where cars are no longer the essential actors.

• Raising awareness and sensitivity towards the future, while expanding the ability to select appropriate design research methods for addressing a given abstract.

OUTCOMES

• Awareness of how to transfer research that can be applied to various projects following activities in car and transportation design.

• Familiarity with the different steps required in the process, such as hypothetical discussions, debriefing, and project conceptualization, gained through case studies of future mobility scenarios, design evolutions, and analysis focused on social structures, art, and architectural inspirations.

• Reflecting on the history and evolution of transportation design, complementing theoretical and design practice based on design methodologies, vehicle architecture, and technological developments that emerged from broader mobility trends, particularly in car culture.

• Helping students think creatively beyond constraints and transferring the idea of a result-driven process into a conceptual project, where time management and continuous progress are key.

• Structuring the project and applying a variety of techniques, including collages, diagrams, storyboards, prototypes, simulations, video, photography, and more.

• Encouraging flexibility to question any given or existing typology and incorporate the outcome into the research process, not just for the final project.